Congratulations to Harry Zheng who is the new u9 South of England champ with 5.5 out of 6.
In the u11 section Bhramav Rajesh was joint 4th with 4 out of 5 and Jerry Zheng had 3.5 (both of these players registered 130+ grading performances). In the u12 Closed Section Abbey Weersing scored 3.5 out of 5. Harry Zheng is pictured below with his trophy and his brother, Jerry.
The 3rd Essex Junior Grand Prix event of 2017/18 was held at the Prince Avenue Academy School in Westcliff-on-Sea on 14 January 2018 and attracted 62 entrants.
Former Essex Junior Champion, Adam Taylor continues to makes progress towards the IM title with an excellent performance at the Hastings Congress. Current Essex juniors should aspire to achieve similar success - further details on the ECF and ECA websites and, of course, the Hastings Congress website.
All players and parents are reminded that the next event in the Essex Junior Chess Grand Prix is on Sunday, 14 January 2018 at the Prince Avenue Academy, Hornby Avenue, Westcliff-on-Sea, SS0 0LG.
The closing date for entries is Wednesday, 10 January so please submit entries by then to avoid possible disappointment as late entries will only be submitted if space permits.
After this event the fourth Grand Prix is likely to be held in Colchester and the fifth and final event will be in Saffron Walden on 24 June 2018.
The under 14 team played their second fixture of 2017/18 away against Kent on 2 December 2017. The teams were evenly matched and despite some early wins for Essex after the first round the scores stood level at six points each.
After the interval between the games we certainly hit the ground running winning seven of the first eight games to finish thus ensuring victory in the match. It was a credit to both teams that the remaining games continued to be well fought and there were two wins for each team giving a final score of 15-9 to Essex.
The 2nd Essex Junior Grand Prix of 2017/18 was held at The Kingswood Primary School, Basildon on 19 November and it attracted 89 entrants from across Essex including and a large number from other counties. There were also some juniors playing in the Open section for adults and those over 14.
Results in the various age groups were as follows –
Under 8
5/6 – Max Pert (Billericay) and Akhilan Balasundaram (Barnet)
The Essex under 14 team played their first match as defending Fleming Trophy Champions at the Kings Road Primary School in Chelmsford on Sunday, 5 November 2017 against Surrey.
After losing several very good players from last year’s team we welcomed three new players – Kyan (on board 1), Lakshan and Isha plus many players from last year played now higher in the team.
There were several Essex juniors competing at the Bury St. Edmunds Congress (28/29 October). Most were playing in the Minor (u120) section and many put in some good performances but none more so than Abigail Weersing who won first prize in the Minor with a clean sweep of five wins!
Minor scores - Abigail Weersing 5, Ryan Smith & Urbi Modhura 3.5 Purba Audhora, Lakshan Siddarth and Jerry Zheng 3 Tejas Mulay, Christopher Willoughby and Harry Zheng 2.5 Ben Chang 2 Charlotte Willoughby & Zoe Johnson 1.5
